Little Creatures launches new Single Batch limited release beer

Australian brewery Little Creatures Brewing have launched the 14th edition of its Single Batch, a traditional Saison.

Little Creatures said its Single Batch beers could be an “ode to an old classic or something different altogether”, and are only available at just a few venues and retailers around the country.

Little Creatures Brewing is based in Fremantle in Western Australia, and has breweries in Fremantle and Geelong, and a dining hall in Fitzroy in Melbourne. Little Creatures’ first beer, Little Creatures Pale Ale was launched in 2001. The brewery is a subsidiary of global food and beverage company Lion.

Evolving the Single Batch program, Little Creatures teamed up with Emerson’s Brewery in Dunedin in New Zealand, with each brewery challenging the other to produce a new style of beer, using unfamiliar techniques and ingredients. Emerson’s asked Little Creatures to brew an authentic Saison.

“A great Saison, one with real integrity of style, is most difficult to craft indeed: it is a clean, well-structured and beautifully aligned beer and, as such, is very unforgiving,” said Russell Gosling, Little Creatures Head Brewer.

“There has been a Saison resurgence of late,” Mr Gosling said. “The style entertains artisanship and culinary presence, which has inspired many brewers to explore the flexibility within the style and as a result, numerous interpretations are now commonplace,” he said.

“Although the style permits much creativity and new regional and indigenous influences are intentionally being established, the nature of this challenge lies in the core virtue of this style: practical beers made for simple enjoyment,” Mr Gosling said. “So this is not about creating some wacky, new-fangled, eco-regional beer; but a simple beer that is not doctored to disguise the unforgiving nature of the style,” he said.

The Little Creatures team succeeded in brewing a traditional Saison, but said the process was not without its challenges. Little Creatures said the experimental and one-off nature of the Single Batch program means “unforseen issues can sometimes occur”, which the team experienced as a result of a new yeast they had not used before.

“After intense testing of our next single batch Saison pint bottles, our expectations are that the C02 levels will exceed the amount that is suitable to our product packaging standards, at some unknown point in time,” Mr Gosling said. “As a result, we won’t be releasing the brew in Pint bottles as planned, but on tap at all good craft beer venues around the country,” he said.